If Your Mother Were an Animal, What Animal Would She Be? Creating Play‐Stories in Family Therapy: The Animal Attribution Story‐Telling Technique (AASTT)

Abstract

In this article, I describe a therapeutic story-telling technique that requires family members to attribute an animal counterpart to each member of the family and then tell a short story--with a beginning, a middle, and an end--about the animal protagonists. The technique was applied in private practice to numerous families with a presenting problem of one or more children referred by the local school system labeled as suffering from conduct disorders and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This story-telling technique offers a predictable structure to sessions, thus facilitating the engagement and participation of children of all ages in the therapeutic process. The animal name attribution to family members creates a fun, nonthreatening atmosphere that helps to promote the description of personality traits and interpersonal relationships through the various animal counterparts. The ensuing story allows each family member to describe situations, feelings, wishes, and more as belonging to the animals and not to themselves. This is an active process. It enables the expression of conflictual feelings, the clarification of erroneous beliefs about the self and others, and the externalization of wishes, fears, aggressive feelings, and fantasies within a safe context. The combined use of animal selves and creative narrative takes into consideration children's developmental capabilities and utilizes their spontaneous pleasure in the world of make-believe to minimize anxiety. In adults, this combination helps to overcome resistance and uncovers issues that are otherwise seldom verbalized. Further, play-stories facilitate dialogue between family members and provide working metaphors that later become an integral part of the therapy sessions and of family lore.